Happy Portland Timbers day!

The wait for the first home game in the MLS era here in Portland is over and I get my first chance to sing along with the Army in the House of Pane. I’ve been a little single minded lately, consuming Podcasts, articles, videos, and twitter feeds and bringing every conversation back to it’s relation, however tenuous, to the Timbers. Beautiful has been patient, knowing how excited I am, but I can tell she has heard a few too many musings on the best combinations of mid-fielders.

Being a consumed fan seems a lot easier when you don’t have kids and a family. That is my working theory anyway. This weekend will be the most concentrated madness with two games in four days, both at home. I would like to head down to the Bitter End Pub by the stadium at noon for the eight o’clock game but the boys being so young can only be home alone for a couple of hours. Once Primo is six maybe I could be gone longer but at four it’s asking too much. So I need to manage expectations for both me and my family. Fully appreciating what a gift it is to get to go to all the home games this year and sing and yell with 20,000 of my closest friends. I’ve never had season tickets before, knowing that for 17-20 games I have plans set already and as excited as I am for that, I know that it means something different for my family. Those are 17-20 times when I am unavailable for what ever else we would have planned for that time.

So far my wife has been more than patient and supportive of all this Timbers excitement so I want to make sure I am meeting her halfway. She doesn’t need to hear about every Designated Player the team picks up and I don’t need to attend every Timbers Army event that’s offered. Balance is the keyword right now and I want to make sure I maintain that balance in all of the excitement. That is what I am mindful of going into this horribly unbalanced weekend. I want to be sure I’m not taking for granted what a great gift I have here. But balance will have to wait for the weeks to come because today is Portland Timbers day and the Chicago Fire are coming into town for the first home game of the MLS era in Portland. Let it rain, let it pour, let the Portland Timbers score!